Wish Gone Wrong
by meganechan720
Summary: "Shenron doesn't know anything about robotics. She's lucky Seventeen brought her here as fast as he did." Krillin's wish for the androids goes terribly wrong.
1. Chapter 1

**Wish Gone Wrong**

_"Shenron doesn't know anything about robotics. She's lucky Seventeen brought her here as fast as he did." Krillin's wish for the androids goes terribly wrong._

* * *

Bulma never called them.

Well, she did, but only when it was either an emergency of planetary or even universal importance or she was having a party. So when the phone rang and Bulma's honey poison voice came over the line—the one that meant you were in big trouble but she wasn't going to tell you what it was yet—Krillin was understandably nervous. Especially since all she told him (sweetly, so sweetly) was to get over to Capsule Corp., _now_. Then she hung up.

Krillin dressed slowly, knowing he was going to go and trying to pretend he was still making up his mind, and also wondering frantically what on earth Bulma could need him for, but most of all hoping that whatever it was, it didn't involve Vegeta.

"I'm going out," he announced to the inhabitants of Kame House. Only Turtle bid him farewell properly, but since it was _Get Fit with Christie_ hour, he wasn't surprised when Roshi and Oolong merely grunted.

A housebot led him deep into Capsule Corp., to Bulma's private lab, where she answered the door with an unreadable look before ushering him inside.

Krillin got an impression of wires and complex machinery—"Uh, Bulma, what's this ab—" And then he froze, captivated by a pair of slanted blue eyes that stopped him in his tracks.

"Android Seventeen?" he said stupidly, and then he noticed the metal slab that dominated the middle of the room, and, more importantly, the unconscious woman lying on top of it.

"Android Eighteen!" he cried, and ran towards her, but the dark-haired twin phased in front of him, arms folded and eyes ice blue and so, so cold.

"Krillin," Bulma called from her chair in front of a computer console, voice still honey-poison, "What, exactly, did you wish for?"

Krillin glanced at her, and found that she was gently rocking a small cradle with her foot, in which lay a sleeping Trunks. The motherly action was an unsettling contrast to the look she was giving him.

"Huh?"

"The wish, Krillin," Bulma repeated impatiently. "Seventeen tells me you made a wish for them. What. Precisely. Was it."

Krillin pushed his sluggish brain into motion like a stalled car.

"I wished… I asked Shenron to take the bombs out of the android's bodies."

"Just like that? That's all you wished for?"

"I—yes."

Bulma sighed tiredly.

"Great," she muttered, turning back to the computer screen. Krillin looked at Eighteen again, and he could see that there were a lot of wires leading to her body, but where they attached to her was obscured by the threatening male android in front of him.

"Why did you do that?" he demanded.

"Why did I—?"

"Why did you make that wish?" Seventeen bellowed, arms uncrossing to rest tersely by his sides, fists clenched.

"I—I—I just w-wanted you two to be happy—"

"Are you a moron?"

Krillin mustered his wits and glared.

"I don't understand what's going on. Eighteen was fine when I saw her after the wish—"

"Oh, she was _fine_!" Seventeen repeated, a manic expression on his face. He began to gesticulate wildly. "She was _just_ _fine_ until she decided to go to sleep. Turned on her self-diagnostics and _bam_. She starts sparking. My sister starts _sparking_ like a toaster in the bath tub, like she stuck a fork in a power outlet—"

Krillin became aware that Seventeen was somewhat hysterical. Bulma got up and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Amazingly, he didn't throw her into a wall or blast her where she stood, but instead went still and seemed to collapse in on himself. He whirled around and grabbed a chair, slamming it down next to the slab, where he sat down in it backwards, propping his chin on the backrest and staring at his sister with a lost expression on his face.

"I don't understand," Krillin said eventually to Bulma, almost whispering. "What happened?"

"Krillin, Shenron maybe be a mystical dragon that grants wishes, but that doesn't mean he knows anything about robotics or circuitry. As far as I can tell, he did exactly what you asked: he removed the bomb. Just took it out, no tying up loose wires, no changing her programming, just poofed it away. She's lucky Seventeen brought her here as fast as he did."

Krillin's mouth opened as he began to understand.

"How much longer?" Seventeen mumbled miserably.

Bulma's voice was kind.

"She's about 80% done with this round of diagnostics. When that's done, I'll try booting up her systems again, but if that doesn't work, I'll have to go back in and start over. It could be a while. Are you going to be okay not sleeping until I can work on you?"

Seventeen nodded against the chair, and continued to stare at his sister, who looked like a not-very-life-like doll. Krillin could see now that the wires all attached to an open port in her chest. Her breasts were bare, but there was nothing sexual about the sight in front of him. Krillin looked away.

"I'm sorry," he said in a low, carrying voice. Seventeen made no move, but Bulma gave him a wan smile. Trunks began to fuss, and Bulma picked him up.

"He's hungry," she said to no one. "I'll be back before it's done."

As she stepped out and still Seventeen gave no sign that he was aware of what was going on around him, Krillin understood that despite his intention in setting the two of them free, his wish had only intensified their dependence on himself and the other Z fighters. It created a clash of emotions that left him ashamed and giddy, but he decided then that whether they hated him for it or not, he was going to help take care of them.


	2. Chapter 2

_By popular request... part 2.  
_

_Any suggestions for part 3?  
_

* * *

Eighteen glanced over at her brother while trying to affix her right earring in the mirror, and sighed.

"Quit sulking, Seventeen."

"I'm not sulking," he said from the couch, turning his face away from her. His arms were folded over his chest and his legs were crossed. He wasn't even pretending to watch TV. Eighteen was, naturally, unconvinced.

"It's just dinner, it's not like we're going out or anything."

"Ha!" he said, uncrossing his arms. "'Going out.' What are you, in grade school? A guy like that doesn't want to 'go out', he just wants to get in your pants."

The look she gave him could have melted steel.

"Now who's in grade school?" She turned back to the mirror and jabbed the earring through her ear lobe.

"Why did you even agree to this?" her brother asked petulantly, folding his arms again. "I thought you hated the guy."

"I don't hate him," she sighed, picking up her lipstick. "I don't even know him."

"Sure you do." Her brother tapped his forehead meaningfully. "You know _all_ about him."

She rolled her eyes and opened the lipstick tube.

"Those are just facts. I don't know _him_. Why he did the things he did. What his hopes and dreams are…"

Seventeen made a face like he was throwing up.

"So just call him up and ask him. You don't need to make a big production out of going to dinner with the guy. What's wrong with staying here and hanging out with me?"

Lipstick applied, Eighteen snapped the tube shut and slammed it down on the counter. She met her brother's eyes through the mirror and fixed him with an icy stare.

"For your information, I happen to want to get to know someone other than you. I realize this hurts your enormous ego, but I'm sure you'll get over it. In fact, maybe you should try it yourself."

Seventeen glared back, and then looked away.

"Fine," he said in a low, flat voice. "Go have fun on your _date_. I may or may not be here when you get back."

Eighteen heaved a great sigh and went over to her brother.

"I don't understand why this bothers you so much. He's a nice guy. He saved our lives. Why shouldn't I go to dinner with him?"

The dark-haired twin, still sulking, curled his lip.

"Because _he's_ the reason you were in a coma for three days."

Eighteen was genuinely surprised. She put her hand on her hip. "Seriously? Is that what this is about? Still?"

"He didn't _have_ to go messing around in other people's business. He didn't even ask us what _we_ wanted. For all he knew maybe I _wanted_ to blow myself up—"

Heedless of the tight black dress she was wearing, Eighteen hauled her brother up by his stupid bandana and shook him.

"_Don't you fucking say that_," she hissed into his surprised face. "Don't you _ever_ fucking say that again, Seventeen. You didn't have to watch your brother get absorbed by that _thing_. You didn't have to listen to him use your voice to try to convince me that you _liked_ being part of him. You didn't have to watch your brother _die_. So don't you fucking _ever _say that again."

She dropped him back down on the couch, face pale and eyes wide and dangerous. She made an effort to slow her breathing, and then stepped back, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

"I'm going out to dinner now. Try to entertain yourself while I'm gone."

She marched out the door, snatching her purse from the side table by the door at the last second. Seventeen watched her go, and then fell back on the couch weakly.

* * *

She sat down at the table and snapped open her menu.

"Hey, Eighteen," Krillin began in a cheerful, friendly tone. She slammed the menu shut and slapped in onto the table.

"Do you have siblings, Krillin?" she asked, a mad gleam in her eye. Krillin froze, eying her carefully.

"No…" he said, pretty sure she already knew the answer to that question.

"Well, be glad," she snapped, gathering up her menu again. Krillin took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Did something happen between you and Seventeen?" he asked carefully.

"Ha!" she said, slamming the menu shut again. "He—"

"Are you ready to order?" the waiter asked. Eighteen fixed him with a sharp glare and he mumbled his apologies while backing away. She turned back to Krillin, eyes still sharp.

"He!" she announced. "_He_ thinks I should just stay home with him all the time. He is a rude, obnoxious, ungrateful _pest_ and he can't seem to get it through his thick skull that we can have normal lives now, thanks to_ you_."

Krillin turned bright red and began stuttering, but Eighteen ignored his feeble protests and railroaded right over him.

"In fact, he thinks you're just trying to sleep with me, which is absurd, right? Right?" she repeated sharply, when Krillin swallowed his tongue. Face still flaming, all he could do was nod and choke down a mouthful of water. She sat back and studied him thoughtfully.

"You know, if _I_ seduced _you_, that would really put him in his place."

Krillin, who had had high hopes for the evening, but not that high, could only stare in amazement at the mere suggestion. Yes, she was beautiful, and _yes_ the idea of sleeping with her was appealing, but revenge sex (would this count as revenge sex? Could you have revenge sex as revenge against your _brother_?) was definitely not how he had imagined this going.

"Eighteen," he began reasonably, smoothing out his napkin.

"I really wasn't that hungry anyway," she continued. "I saw a love hotel on my way here; let's go right now."

His mouth, which he had opened to continue speaking, stayed open. She… she was even refolding her napkin and putting it back on the table. She was picking up her purse! She really meant it!

"Come on," she said, and Krillin was sharply aware, behind the sudden fog that was afflicting his brain, that he was about to have sex with a beautiful woman. The thought did not please him as much as he had thought it might, when the time came.

"Uh, Eighteen," he said, not moving. She glared at him.

"What?" she demanded, and he flinched.

"It's just… I think we should stay here and eat."

He had vowed not to mention how far in advance he'd had to call to make these reservations, though truthfully that added to his hesitation very little. She glared and opened her mouth to speak.

"I don't know who my parents are," Krillin said, beating her to it. The fog had dissipated into that battle calm that meant he was going to pay for it later. She gaped at him, completely nonplussed. He continued smoothly. "I was left in a basket at Orin temple, and I grew up there until I made my way to Master Roshi's. That's where I met Goku. Did you know Master Roshi taught him to read with romance novels? I kind of hated him at first; he was such a natural at all the training, but I was always better at book learning. We had a lot of fun; training together, eating together, learning together. Even though sometimes years went by when I didn't see him, we've been best friends since we were kids and nothing can change that."

All the android sitting across from him seemed capable of doing was blinking. Krillin smoothed his napkin needlessly.

"Your turn," he said, and when she didn't reply, added, "I asked you here so we could get to know each other. And because I've heard the dumplings here are really good." He pointedly opened his menu, heart beating wildly.

Eighteen's confusion softened into thoughtfulness, and when the waiter returned, she opened her menu and meekly studied it.


	3. Chapter 3

_Any ideas on how to continue this would be much appreciated. I'm sort of writing by the seat of my pants here._

* * *

Eighteen leaned against the doorway to the apartment she shared with her brother. She was a little tipsy, but the tiny smile tugging at her lips came from the fact that Krillin had been a perfect gentleman all evening. Even when she had accidentally flashed him when she tripped on the sidewalk and he caught her. He hadn't even looked down her shirt. Just shot his eyes up to the night sky and let her use his bald head as support while she unstrapped her heels, which took about twice as long as it normally did.

Okay, so maybe she was more than a little tipsy; that had been good wine and Krillin had been paying for everything. Actually, maybe she should invite him out next time, to pay him back. Yes. That was a good idea. Just to pay him back, mind. Since he was being so generous and all.

Krillin coughed into his fist and looked up at her with a nervous smile.

"Will you be alright?" he asked. Her smile widened.

"Why don't you come inside and make sure?" she said in a sultry voice. He was such a gentleman he even started nodding, as though to say, _Yes, what a good idea, I'll put out some aspirin and a glass of water for when you wake up_; and then the years he'd spent at Kame House seemed to catch up with him and he just turned red.

She laughed.

"You're pretty cute," she said, and a part of her brain knew she was going to regret saying that in the morning. At the moment, though, it was simply the truth. He was _adorable._ She'd never met anyone who was really like this in real life; somehow she just couldn't take him seriously as a real person. That was probably why she motorboated him, she thought distantly, clinically. That had to be it. She'd never take a _real_ man's head and stuff it between her breasts, not even if he _was_ just the right height for it. She used a portion of her super human strength to keep him there as she unlocked her door and stumbled inside.

"E-Eighteen!" Krillin protested, his voice muffled, but suddenly all she could think about was that her brother's gun collection was gone. She released Krillin and strode over to the empty gun rack, consciously raising her metabolism by 35% so she would sober up a little. Her ever-present programming informed her that the anti-panic systems were kicking in, but since all that did was slow the flow of adrenaline to her body, it didn't make her feel any better. The last time that particular bit of programming had activated had been after Cell absorbed Seventeen, and it had made her resistance against the monster even more pitiful than it would have been normally. The unpleasant association made her feel even worse.

"He really left," she said in a low voice. Krillin, face mostly back to its normal color, had stepped quietly beside her as she stared at the wall, and at her words he put a comforting hand on her elbow. The alcohol had not yet completely burned off, and that was the only reason, the _only_ reason, that she began to cry.

* * *

Krillin awoke to the sound of the door opening and closing. He opened his eyes, and went from being uncomfortably stiff from spending a night on a couch directly into too frozen with fear to move at all.

Seventeen glared down at him with flat, blue eyes that were disturbingly like his sister's.

"This isn't what it looks like," Krillin said, voice high in panic. The smile that broke through the glare on the android's face was hard and cruel and terrifying.

"You know, it's a funny thing," he said almost conversationally. Krillin felt sure that if he'd been holding a knife he'd be using it to nonchalantly clean his nails. "Usually when people say that, it's _exactly_ what it looks like."

It didn't look good, Krillin had to admit. He knew for a fact that he was still fully clothed, minus only his suit jacket, and he was reasonably certain that the only thing Eighteen was missing was her shoes, but since a large, fluffy comforter covered every part of them but their heads, it was easy to fill in the blanks with something a lot less innocent.

The blond head resting on his shoulder shifted, and Eighteen mumbled something that sounded like his name. The glare on Seventeen's face reasserted itself. Krillin swallowed.

"Uh, Eighteen," he said. Since he had watched her cry herself to sleep over her brother, he felt distinctly disinclined to simply announce his presence to her. However, he also didn't want to be the center of said brother's attention any longer than was necessary, so he lifted his shoulder slightly, jostling her. "Eighteen, wake up."

She opened one eye, crusty with dried tears and sleep gunk, and glared at him. It was so like the expression on her brother's face that it gave him a sudden and intense case of the willies. But after a moment it softened, allowing his breathing to start up again, and she straightened up on the couch, inhaling deeply and stretching her arms. The comforter fell away, revealing their clothed shoulders, and Krillin looked at Seventeen out of the corner of his eye. The android did not seem any less angry than before. He held in a sigh.

Eighteen relaxed out of her stretch and sat up all the way, catching sight of her brother as she did so. Her eyes widened fractionally, and then narrowed.

"Forget something?" she asked coldly. Her brother narrowed his eyes as well.

"I was _going_ to come apologize. Because I realized that it was _absurd_ of me to imply that you'd let yourself be used by some desperate little midget."

Eighteen stood rapidly, coming to rest nose-to-nose with her brother.

"For your _information_," she spat, "he was comforting me because my stupid little brother ran away from home. Again."

"Don't pretend like this is the same thing, Eighteen."

"No. It's not. This time I was convinced you weren't coming back."

Seventeen snarled wordlessly.

"Where were you going to go this time, Seventeen?" his sister demanded. "It wouldn't have been just the cops after you this time, it would have been _his_ crew." She gestured sharply in Krillin's direction, who shrank down into the couch even further. Seventeen's glare deepened, though he did not so much as glance at Krillin.

"And who says I was going to be doing something illegal, huh? That's _real_ generous of you sis, thanks for assuming the worst of me."

"You've never given me reason to assume anything else."

Eighteen was merely spitting words out, heedless of their meaning, but Seventeen turned white, and his eyes burned.

"Then I guess the next time you almost die I'll just stand back and let it happen," he said in a flat voice. Krillin could see Eighteen's eyes soften as she realized what her brother meant, but before she could say anything he spun on his heel and strode to the door. He wrenched it open and turned back just long enough to say, "Don't expect me back this time," before slamming it shut behind him.

Eighteen let out a soft sigh, but then she straightened and jogged after her brother. "Seventeen! Wait!"

Krillin sat on the couch in the now empty apartment feeling, not for the first time, like the biggest third wheel in the world. He'd been wrong about the two of them being lovers, but he hadn't been wrong about their closeness. They were less like siblings and more like two halves of the same person, and there was no room between them for him. This argument would pass, leaving them as connected as ever, and Krillin would be right back where he started, alone.

He stood, gathering his jacket and straightening his rumpled shirt, and then looked down at Eighteen's discarded shoes on the floor.

"I can't let it end like this," he whispered to himself. If he let her go now, he would regret it for the rest of his life. This was nothing like Maron, who had been pretty and fun and in the end, only a means to an end: Krillin the Married Man. Eighteen made him feel like a silly schoolboy but she also made him feel brave, and she was snarky and funny and strong and flawed, and he loved her. He loved her so much he wondered if he'd really loved Maron at all.

Lifting his chin, Krillin strode to the door of the apartment and flung it open, ready to chase down Eighteen and… and…

Well, it didn't matter that he hadn't thought past that part, because down the hall and across from the elevator was Eighteen, her brother in her arms, the dark-haired man sobbing his heart out on her shoulder like a little boy.

Krillin slumped.

Eighteen was murmuring softly to her brother, soothingly rubbing his back, and when she caught sight of Krillin she frowned and made a shooing motion with her hand.

"Third wheel for life," Krillin mumbled to himself as he took the stairs.


End file.
